


The Elephant in the Room

by The_Violet_Howler



Series: Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine's Journey [7]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Analysis, Essays, Heroine's Journey, M/M, Meta, Nonfiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25334080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Violet_Howler/pseuds/The_Violet_Howler
Summary: An explanation of how the development of romantic relationships is portrayed in the Heroine’s Journey and what it means for the Kingdom Hearts story.
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine's Journey [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765777
Comments: 15
Kudos: 35





	The Elephant in the Room

In my previous essays, I have covered how the Kingdom Hearts narrative follows Maureen Murdock’s template of the Heroine’s Journey, as well as how various characters and story elements tie in with the overarching themes of the framework. Before I can continue to dig further into other themes and archetypes, there is something I need to address first. While I have avoided directly touching on the topic in my previous essays, I have now reached the point where it is no longer possible to talk about the Heroine’s Journey in full without acknowledging the elephant in the room: 

Romance.

In ongoing serialized stories such as tv shows and video games, conversations about potential relationships in canon are often treated as inconsequential to the overall story. Something that is separate from the main plot. At worst, I have seen fans who openly center a ship in their analysis and theories be dismissed and criticized as biased - or worse, delusional. They are treated as being so obsessed with their pairing that they try to make everything about their ship and jump on any excuse to declare that it’s viable in canon. 

Among the Kingdom Hearts fandom in particular, this has often taken the form of someone trying to dismiss other fans’ hope for a ship to be canon by saying that the series is about friendship, not romance.

While friendship is absolutely an important theme in the Kingdom Hearts series, to insist that this is mutually exclusive from depicting the development of romantic relationships ignores the continued presence of canon Disney romances in almost every game in the series. In each “main” game where Sora is playable, he has directly or indirectly been involved in getting those Disney couples together in the KH universe. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility for the series to turn the tables and give some attention to _his_ romantic interests for a change. 

A story having other major themes is not mutually exclusive from showcasing the development of a romantic relationship. There are many popular movies, shows, books, comics, and video games in which a romantic relationship plays a central role in the narrative but there are still other plotlines going on that are equally as important as the romance. This is _e_ _specially_ true for Disney and Square Enix.

The reason _why_ it’s impossible to fully talk about the Heroine’s Journey without acknowledging romance elements is best encapsulated by this quote from She-Ra showrunner Noelle Stevenson about her show’s endgame pairing in an i09 interview after the release of the final season:

> _“The show’s not a romance show. It is about a lot of things. It’s about choice, destiny, fighting, tyrants, you know, all of these other things. I grew up with so many stories—like sci-fi and fantasy—that I was so passionate about. And it would be considered no big deal to have the hero get the girl and to have a kiss at the end, without it suddenly becoming a romance or ‘Oh, the shippers got what they wanted.’ It was just a part of the story. And to actually see it be a central part of the plot and to fulfill the arcs of the characters in a way that felt satisfying. I really want to take it beyond ‘Oh, the shippers got what they want.’ Like, it’s not just a ship for me. It is a plot point. It is the necessary conclusion of each character’s arc, separate and together.[1]”_

While not every story known to follow the Heroine's Journey features a romance for the main protagonist, those that do make the romance an integral part of the narrative. It’s not something thrown in at the end to please shippers, but a central component of the story. Therefore, when analyzing a Heroine’s Journey story, it is vital to acknowledge and discuss textual support for potential romantic relationships in order to have a full understanding of the narrative.

Even if one is not aware of the Heroine’s Journey, Sora’s repeated interactions with Disney romances indicate that there is a high probability that he will be in a romantic relationship himself by the end of the series. Every story I know of that follows the Heroine’s Journey broadly adheres to a pattern in regards to how the romantic relationships of a main character are set up.

By examining the series through these patterns, we can narrow down who Sora’s endgame romantic partner will be. 

Because the themes and character dynamics emphasize resolving internal conflict through balance, the Heroine’s Journey lends itself extremely well to Beauty-and-the-Beast, rivals-to-lovers, and enemies-to-lovers relationship dynamics. A major component of the Heroine’s Journey is the main character learning to accept themselves, and since the Animus as a Shadow figure can represent the parts of themselves that they haven’t accepted yet, it is simpler to symbolize that self-acceptance via a romance with the Animus rather than attempting to build a separate relationship on top of the existing story framework.

For these reasons, the Animus is more often than not the main character’s endgame love interest, their feelings for each other made into critical aspects of their respective character arcs. The only Heroine’s Journey stories with romance that I know of where this _wasn’t_ the case are ones where executive meddling resulted in the finale being rewritten to kill off the Animus despite established narrative set up for them to receive a positive ending[2], while the protagonist was either forced into a relationship with a different character or left single.

And like I said in previous essays, the one character in the series who fulfills all criteria for the Animus role within this storytelling framework…. 

Is Riku.

As mentioned in my earlier analysis, this narrative framework emphasizes the importance of balancing contrasting attributes, which fits in extremely well with Kingdom Hearts’ focus on balance between light and darkness. For stories that follow the Heroine’s Journey in a visual medium, that dichotomy is often incorporated into the characters’ look. Height differences are common, while their color schemes and outfits are designed to make them complement each other. Further adding to the focus on balance between light and darkness, the visuals of the story frame the romantic leads with imagery associating each one with light or darkness to create Yin-Yang symbolism when they are finally in balance. 

In Re: Chain of Memories, Vexen openly calls Riku the “[ Hero of Darkness ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCKOd7gRev8&list=PLKdiHBlJA-4y3pZ6Np4X8-b-58w-Gp8AK&index=141&t=0s)[3]” as a counterpart to Sora’s role as the “Hero of Light”, and their combination attack in Kingdom Hearts II utilizes moves that reflect both elements. In the Ultimania for the original game, Tetsuya Nomura said that Riku’s look was intentionally designed to balance Sora’s[4], and the contrast between their respective color schemes is maintained in each of their new outfits. In Kingdom Hearts II and Dream Drop Distance, Riku wears white and blue, while Sora in those same games wears black and red. Two different pairs of contrasting colors. Kingdom Hearts III has them both in outfits that are primarily black and grey, but still emphasize the blue and red that have been part of their respective outfits since the first game. 

In a Heroine’s Journey, the love interest is typically an active character in the story and usually serves as the deuteragonist. This fits with Riku having been a mandatory playable character in multiple games since 2004. In addition, series producer Shinji Hashimoto said before the release of the HD 1.5 Remix collection[5] that the main focus of the series is how Sora and Riku develop both as individuals and as a pair, which fits with how the central conflict of the Heroine’s Journey revolves around the dynamic between the Protagonist and their Animus. 

A common viewpoint held by many fans of the series is that Kairi is Sora’s love interest, and it’s not hard to see why people get that impression. He has sacrificed himself to save her in two separate games now. He’s charged enemies head on in order to rescue her whenever she’s been captured. He even got down on his knees and begged for her freedom when Saix demanded he show how important she was to him. Multiple characters have talked about how special she is to him, and Roxas refers to her as “that girl he[Sora] likes.” 

However, there are multiple elements in the narrative that point to them not being the endgame romance. Kingdom Hearts III foreshadows the final shot of them sitting on the paopu together at the end of the game with Sora disappearing from the cover of the 100 Acre Wood storybook, textually framing Winnie the Pooh as a parallel to Kairi. While many fans regarded their sharing paopu fruits in the base game as the beginning of a relationship between them, he still only refers to her as a friend in Re:Mind, and even compares his bond with her to the bond between Ventus and Chirithy. 

Sora also does not treat his promises to her with the seriousness he would if they were going to end up together. The promises to return her lucky charm and to come back to her that he makes in the first game are never treated as anything urgent when he awakens in Kingdom Hearts II. Instead, he declines the opportunity to return to the islands and check in with her in favor of searching for Riku. When Kairi says in The World That Never Was that they’ll be together every day, Sora agrees, yet he was content to spend the rest of his life on the dark beach at the end of the game as long as he was with Riku. 

Meanwhile, the most consistent theme regarding Kairi in relation to the Destiny Islands trio is the idea of childhood friends drifting apart as they get older[6][7]. This is particularly highlighted in Kingdom Hearts III, with Kairi writing letters to Sora that she never sends, thereby keeping her thoughts to herself. Merlin also emphasizes this when he talks about forging new connections after Sora’s visit to 100 Acre Wood. This parallel frames the ending of Re:Mind as the two of them recognizing they’ve drifted apart and choosing to put in the effort to renew their friendship by spending time together.

On a structural level, her portrayal does not fit with how love interests are typically depicted in the Heroine’s Journey, both as an individual and in relation to the main protagonist. There is no contrast between her and Sora’s designs or roles the way there is between his and Riku’s. Her color scheme is predominantly pink, which does not have the same contrast with Sora’s red as Riku’s blue. Because she’s a Princess of Heart, there is no dark and light contrast, and the combination attack she shares with Sora in Re:Mind only utilizes light-based moves. It took 17 years after her first appearance in the series for her to be made a playable character, and even then, playing as her is not mandatory. They are never portrayed as equals, and she is not an active force in his emotional growth. 

The Heroine’s Journey was crafted for narratives revolving around identities that have been Othered by society for one reason or another. Murdock designed her template as a tool to help women deal with being shamed by society for expressing and pursuing their desires. In a similar way, LGBTQ+ people _a_ _lso_ face stigma from society for expressing and pursuing their desires. So it makes perfect sense that a framework for narratives of people overcoming internalized stigma against important parts of themselves would be ripe for stories featuring LGBTQ+ protagonists of any gender.

As mentioned in previous essays, stories that follow the Heroine’s Journey challenge the biases and blind spots of the audience. A relationship between Kairi and Sora does not challenge anything because she has largely been regarded as the endgame love interest by default since the beginning. Meanwhile, a romantic relationship between Sora and Riku challenges players to recognize heteronormativity within themselves and in the media around them. It challenges people to examine the lens through which they perceive the story and rethink how they look at what’s happening in the narrative.

In summary, the portrayal of Kairi and her bond with Sora is not consistent with how love interests are commonly depicted in the Heroine’s Journey, while the portrayal of Riku and _his_ bond with Sora _is_. If Sora’s story is going to continue on this storytelling formula to the end, the structure of the Heroine’s Journey narrative leaves Riku as the only thematically viable candidate for the role of endgame love interest. 

Now, as some people bring up in conversations about Soriku, there is a potential obstacle in the form of corporate executives. It is entirely possible that Disney will drag their heels and try to force the development team to downplay or remove any open same-sex relationship the series may try to depict. They do not have a strong track record of LGBTQ+ representation that isn’t a minor character who only appears for one scene. Given that their last IP to follow the Heroine’s Journey - the Star Wars sequel trilogy - crashed and burned at the end, executive meddling is my greatest fear for this franchise.

But the thing to keep in mind is that Tetsuya Nomura is stubborn as hell. One of the reasons the long gap between Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts III was because he was holding out for permission to include Pixar movies in the game, outright _refusing_ to start work on KH3 until they were given that go ahead[8]. If you want further proof of how stubborn he can be, this is how he described the meeting where he first pitched the series to Disney in a 2012 interview with the late president of Nintendo[9]:

> _**Iwata:** Their ideas were different from yours, naturally… _
> 
> _**Nomura:** Yes. They appeared to believe that we would make whatever they wanted us to make and came up with rather specific requests such as, "We'd like the game to feature this character." They were really excited, explaining their ideas... To be honest, though, I wasn't really interested in any of them. (laughs) _
> 
> _Both: (laughter)_
> 
> _**Iwata:** You wanted to borrow Disney's characters in order to make a new game that could compete with Mario 64, and you already had a vision of what this game would look like. I suppose their ideas didn't fit in with this vision. _
> 
> _**Nomura:** They didn't, no. In the end, I actually stopped a presentation halfway through. We didn't have that much time, and it looked like it was all going to get taken up by various Disney presentations. _ _So, I interrupted them and told them the conclusion by saying, "I won't make such games."_

Talk about nerves of steel. This man basically said “we do this my way, or we don’t do it at all” _TO MOTHERFORKING DISNEY,_ **_AND. HE. WON._ **If there is any human being with enough force of will to make the Mouse House cave in and allow the depiction of an openly LGBTQ+ relationship in the Kingdom Hearts series, it is Tetsuya Nomura.

I cannot say with 100% certainty how things will go. But everything I know about storytelling patterns and narrative structure is telling me that Kingdom Hearts is a textbook Heroine’s Journey with a romance between Sora and Riku at its core. A relationship between the protagonist and the Animus does not truly begin until the “Integration” stage at the end of the Journey, and we are rapidly approaching the point in the narrative where the two leads traditionally become aware of and acknowledge their feelings in order to be on the same page for the finale.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Sources:**  
>  [1] “She-Ra's Noelle Stevenson Tells Us How Difficult It Was to Bring Adora and Catra Home” May 18, 2020  
> https://io9.gizmodo.com/she-ras-noelle-stevenson-tells-us-how-difficult-it-was-1843419358  
> [2] “Death of a Dark Youth, Desecration of the Animus”; December 20, 2018.  
> https://www.teampurplelion.com/death-of-a-dark-youth/  
> [3] Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories. Square Enix, 2007.   
> [4] “A Look Back: Kingdom Hearts Ultimania Gallery Comments Part 1″; August 30, 2019;  
> https://www.khinsider.com/news/A-Look-Back-KINGDOM-HEARTS-Ultimania-Gallery-Comments-Part-1-15519  
> [5] “How Kingdom Hearts III Will Grow Up With Its Players;” September 24, 2013.  
> https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/25/how-kingdom-hearts-iii-will-grow-up-with-its-players.  
> [6] “E3 2018: Tetsuya Nomura on If Kingdom Hearts 3 Is the End of Sora's Story”; June 14, 2018.  
> https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/14/e3-2018-tetsuya-nomura-on-if-kingdom-hearts-3-is-the-end-of-soras-story  
> [7] “Character’s Report Vol. 1 Translations”; Jul 16, 2014  
> https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/characters-report-vol-1-translations.195560/  
> [8] “Edge Magazine Features Kingdom Hearts III Cover Story”; January 9, 2019. https://www.khinsider.com/news/Edge-Magazine-Features-Kingdom-Hearts-III-Cover-Story-14331  
> [9] “Iwata Asks: Nintendo 3DS: Third Party Game Developers, Volume 12: Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Part 2: It’ll definitely be fun”; April 2012.   
> https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/1


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